Back on track!

Woohoo, we moved and finally settled at our new home, so we can continue Postcrossing! We already tested the mail service at the area - quite good, I must say. And we already received our first card with the new address! A great Turku castle in Finland from Seija. Wow, it is so well-preserved! I have an aunt, who lives in Pori, a small town not far from Turku, so we must pay a visit one day. I'm really glad there is such a wonderful ability to see new places while sitting at home. And, of course, to get ideas for travelling!

Card from Lübeck

My mailbox has been pretty sad lately, but I'm expecting some tag-cards to come home soon! Meanwhile, i got this awesome card with a view of Lübeck in Germany! This was a private swap with Grit, who sent us a baby-fox card in official Postcrossing recently. She really wanted to receive a bunny card, so we gladly accepted the trade) I love the old towns in Germany - they are so beautiful, so neat and tidy! We've been to Germany several times, and we want more!

CN-377809

They say China is in the Postcrossing's "Top 5" countries, with the biggest sending ratio. Well, it's not like that for us - we have only sent 2 cards to China so far, and received one. caolvchong84 from Beijing sent us this great view of Mount Tai, one of Chinese Five sacred mountains. On the back of the card there is a description: "Archway of Paradise street". I googled like crazy, and the only info I got comes from here, and says:

The Gate to Mid-heaven
It's located at the mid-point of the mountain path to the top, where one has a splendid view of the vertical steps to the summit, the Wen River like a ribbon in the south, Zhongxi Mountain in the east, and the Fenghuang Ridge in the west. 

I guess it's the same thing?..

Anyway, here's the card.

Oh, and I forgot about another cool card we got from a private swap with Zhang. He asked for a bunny stamp, which our post-office issued this year, and sent us the National stadium ("Bird's nest"), where 2008 Olympics took place! 

Moomin cards

To be honest, I wasn't a Moomin fan when I was a kid. But when me and Lio discussed a Postcrossing wishlist, she insisted on adding Moomins. And also made me read the book - which I found lovely now. =) My favorites are Snufkin and Moomin. The stories are really heartwarming, and again! Postcrossing makes me wish for another trip - now to Tampere, Finland, to visit Moomin museum.
We received three Moomin cards so far - one from Mirella, an 8-years old girl from Kokkola:

Second was a direct swap with Viivi - and her choice was so perfect! I adore the art of the cartoon Muumilaakson tarinoita!

And the third one we recently got from Eva - I don't remember the character's name in English, but doesn't matter - so nice! 

What will be the next one, I wonder?)

CH-80021

Today's a lucky day! We got an absolutely amazing card with a castle from Sara. She's from Switzerland, and that's a new country for us! Sara said she didn't have a card with Switzerland's castle, but she's sure we'll love this one - Vaduz castle in Liechtenstein. And oh dear god, we DO! I love it when we get a card with a place we never heard of before. I really wish we can visit Liechtenstein one day! :3

Some stats

So, it's been 157 days since we joined Postcrossing, and it's time for some statistics. :3

61 cards sent and 61 card received.

We have eight cards travelling to: Taiwan, Portugal, Australia, Japan, Russia, Malaysia, USA and Philippines.

Our first card was sent to the Netherlands.

Our 50th card was sent to Russia.

Our 60th card, which allowed us to send 8 cards at a time, was sent to Canada.

Top 5 countries with biggest sent-received ratio for us are: USA (18), Finland (18), Germany (13), the Netherlands (12) and Russia (11).

The most "rare" countries in our list are: Iceland and Macau.

Sent distance: 225,807 km
Received distance: 166, 369 km

That's it for now. We continue the journey through the postcard world)

NL-651393

Again, the first postcard for our new wishlist point - 'mystical-looking forest'. And the one to send it was Gea from Netherlands. This is such an awesome postcard, I love it! It looks even better in real life, because it has square form. The colours are so good, and the fogs adds this atmosphere... One of my favourite "find-something-awesome-in-a-simple-thing" experiences is driving to the local airport early in the summer morning, when the sun is still rising (3 or 4 AM), and watching the foggy fields. Love it. Thank you, Gea!

Wild cuteness

Today we got these cute fox-babies from Grit! Me and Lio love watching Animal Planet, we love wild animals and foxes are always a wonder to watch at. Grit also made a cute Internetstamp with a white tiger for us - lovely, thank you!

Also some time ago we received a baby-seal card from Monic! Baby-seals are extremely cute, and my heart aches at the thought that some freaks might still kill this adorable creature. I will never understand this pointless killing. I wish I could help in protecting seals somehow...

Cutie pie pets!

Two cards with adorable pets received! This one was sent by lovely Ulla, who's exactly same card I favourited. These two are adorable! I wish my two cats would get along that nicely... And this was also the first card from France we got.

And these cute fluffy guys came from Elvira of Germany. Awwww...

FI-1074764

Recently I added a new point in the Postcrossing wishlist - Manga-style drawings from users. Me and Lio love reading manga, and we also try to draw (not very successfully), so it would be really nice to see what other people created. ^.^
Heidi from Finland prints her card herself - and she does a wonderful job! She sent us a drawing made and signed by her sister. This is so awesome! :D A lovely bishounen for our collection. :3 I wish I could draw this nicely!

RU-412104

That was one long vacation I took from my blog... Life's been so busy lately. Sometimes I feel so tired - even beloved hobbies do not bring any pleasure. But anyway, I'm back now)

This beautiful card from Moscow shows the Novodevichy convent (New Maidens' Monastery in translation). It belongs to UNESCO WHS. Sveta writes this monastery has a very peaceful, holy feeling. I can't call myself a very religious person, but I like temples and holy places because of that wonderful peaceful feeling you get while visiting. I've been to Aglona, one of the sacred places in Latvia, and also to Puhtitsa Convent in Estonia - it was really educating and, how to put this?.. Relaxing. I also took note, that I can't really pray while there are a lot of people around. I prefer solitude. I don't really care about official rituals and hate to take part. But I like to light candles - both in Catholic and Orthodox churches - without praying, just like a sign of me being there and appreciating the moment.
..Um.. On with the card)) I hope to visit Moscow one day - without usual haste, and thoroughly examine all the beautiful places!

FI-1029660

I've been really busy lately, and many cool cards we received didn't have proper attention - but I'll show them all, I promise! :)

Here goes.
This card comes from Elina (Finland). Somehow all cards we receive from Finland are gorgeous! You rock, Finnish Postcrossers! Elina said she also loves Husky dogs, and she has 5 of them! Wow, that is so amazing! Husky is my favorite dog breed, I love their big ice-blue eyes. It is so sad we can't keep one - a city apartment is not a good place for such a gorgeous dog. I want to have a sledge ride with huskies sooo much) Must go visit Lapland some day. Thank you, Elina)

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Our second card from USA - now from Tennessee, sent by Sara. And mountains again) America's nature is so beautiful... Great Smoky Mountains (or just Smokies) are a part of Unesco WHS. There is G.S.M. National Park, which is a very popular place for tourists.

New cards

Mailbox was happy today! Norma from the Netherlands sent us a card with Pokemon, since we have "anime" in our wishlist. She said her brother is a big fan of Pokemon, and he gave her this card to send us. We have never watched Pokemon, since we consider it more suitable for children, but I really appreciate Norma's wish to make us happy. It's very nice when someone tries his\her best to make people smile. Thank you, Norma! Besides, Snorlax does look cute))

And another drawn card for today was sent by Veronika from Czech Republic. A new country in our country-list! This card is an illustration for Charles Perrault's "Puss in Boots" fairy-tale. This was one of my favorite fairy-tales in childhood! I learned how to read with the help of this book. So cool, thanks, Veronika!

Received RU-319807

This card comes from Dashe (Orenburg, Russia). It's an advertising card for the Sela clothing shop. Um, I guess that's a reference to our wish for modern Gothic and Lolita fashion?.. At least the girl wears a skirt and cute socks...) If we had a branch of this store here in Riga I would've check it out, they have some nice clothes in the online catalogue.

DK-13945

This card comes from Rita (Denmark). We received 13 cards so far, and each came from different country. When the chain will stop, I wonder?) But personally I'm not a crazy collector of "new" countries - me and Lio enjoy the fact, that somebody took his/her time to sign a card for us. Especially if this person picked a card according to our preferences - oh, the joy of receiving! ^_^

Rita sent us a beautiful card of Koldinghus castle. I LOVE medieval castles. I never miss a chance to visit one, when I travel.
Koldinghus was a royal residence for Danish kings when they travelled around the country. It was burned down by Spanish soldiers in 1808, and restored later. Now it is a museum. Marvellous, really. I want to visit it so badly. T_T

Received NL-546028

We've sent three postcards to the Netherlands already, but haven't received any from there - untill now! This card is so beautiful, and it gives such a nice feeling, like the sping is already around the corner... I can't wait for the flowers to bloom and grass to be green. ^__^

Frieda from Ede told us this is a traditional card with tulips, mills and wooden shoes. These shoes are called Clog. Frieda said nobody wears them now except for a few farmers, and they are mostly made for tourists. I'd love to have a pair, they are so cool and shiny! :)

"Problematic" cards

These two cards took forever to get to their receivers - because of the stupid unknown glitch of our post-office I described earlier.

Card for Tine from Vosselaar, Belgium. It was not easy to find a card for her - because we started Postcrossing not so long ago, our stock of cards to send is very limited, and I have to go shopping every time we pick a new address. It was Christmas time, when we got Tine's address, so only Christmas and New Year cards were available, along with basic touristy cards. Sadly, I couldn't find any animal card, so I had to settle with this one - Tine mentioned "cute old people" in her profile - and I hope this lady is cute enough.^^

This lady is selling flowers and oak leaves wreaths for a national Latvian holiday called Jāņi (or also Ligo). Celebrated in the night between 23 and 24 of June, it's a nice tradition from Pagan times, when people usually eat roasted meat, cheese, drink beer, jump over giant bonfire, sing, dance, swing on swings... It's a lot of fun, really! ^_^ I like to believe that magic stuff can happen that night. :3

And Ymare from Ter Apel, Netherlands received two of our postcards, because I was so worried she won't get it - and we sent the second one. I have only one scanned though - it's black and white, like Ymare likes - and it's a photo of the House of the Blackheads. It was built in the 14th century, completely destroyed in WW2 and renovated in 1999.

Even more sent cards

So, 14 cards sent so far, and 5 travelling. We received 11 cards, so I hope more will come to us soon, because I'm kind of addicted to finding a new card in the mail box. ^_^

Yana from Tolyatti, Russia has a dream of opening a New Year museum, where she can show her New Year postcard and stamp collection from all the world, and also tell about traditions of New Year celebrations around the world. Cool idea, don't you think? So we searched through our Box of Old Postcards again, and found this cute card with a drawing by Margarite Staraste, printed back in 1975. I hope this card will be a fine piece for Yana's future museum! :D

And this card was for Sherry from Riverside, USA. Our card was going to be the first Sherry's card from Latvia, so we chose a multiview card with famous sights and a big photo of the Old Town.

Nice day today :3

So yeah, today was a very nice Postcrossing day. Even though my mail box was sad and empty - three of our postcards arrived! Two of them - the "problematic" ones (I was really afraid they won't make it). Phew!

And I also went for postcard hunting today. It was a huge success - the shops finally got rid of massive amounts of Christmas and New Year cards. And updated their selection of beautiful sceneries and city views. Ooooh, joy! I finally found two cards with a sea view and Turaida castle I wanted. For myself and for Postcrossing - I'll make a post with these cards when they arrive. ^_^

My top-favourite places to get postcards -
Valters un Rapa - a book store in the center of the city, with a large selection of cards. I buy most of the cards we send here. City views (not only Riga), coat of arms, birthday cards, cards with cute drawings (most of them are double, not postcards, but some people like them). Love it)

Globuss - a textbook store. Selection is not as big as V un R, but there are some cards that were sold out in other shops.

Tiimari - a lot of postcards with animals, Valentine cards, Disney (the one and only shop, where you can find cartoony version of Jack Sparrow! XDD), flowers - anything, you name it. Where oh where these cards were, when I was looking for them?! T_T

Okay, on with the sent cards!
This card was for Adela from Bialystok in Poland. She likes surrealism and unusual art. I found this card in Valters un Rapa. It was a double card, but Adele wished for the card to be stamped and without envelope. I remembered the tip from the forum - just cut the card in two pieces, and voila! Adela loved it, I'm happy)
The picture on the card is called Pass-a-grille Pelican. It's a digital computer artwork by Aya Nagobads.

Card #11 received

This cool card comes from Carole in Hamilton, Canada. This "Did you know?" card series is a great idea. You can see a photo of an animal/object and read some interesting facts about it. Carole was so nice and chose a card with a big wild cat - a cougar. We love cats, we love big and wild cats - cougars are very beautiful.

Since the text is too small to see, I'll quote it:
Cougar (Felis concolor)
Next to the bears, this is the largest, most powerful Canadian predator. Once numerous from Atlantic to the Pacific, habitat destruction has reduced much of its range. As a result, it is found chiefly in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and Alberta. Large males can measure 2.5 m in total length and may weigh over 90 kg. The cougar can run as quickly as 70km/h (43.5 mph), jump 6 m (20 ft) from a standing position, and vertically leap 2.5 m (8 ft). They have been seen to junp horizontally 12 m (40 ft) and vertically nearly 5 m (16 ft). They prey upon deer, wapiti, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, beaver, snowshoe hares, and even mice. Their preference is for fresh meat, and they rarely scavenge from old kills. Despite their size, these animals, because of their extreme wariness, are infrequently seen by man in their natural habitat.

Now we have a card of a predator from Rocky mountains, and we also have a card of an American side of R.M. we received from Gloria! Cool)

Cards from Turkey

Ece from Turkey sent us TWO cards instead of one. ^^ One with a photo of Bosphorus Bridge - a bridge that connects Asian and European parts of Turkey. And second with an afternoon view of Istanbul. So beautiful and peaceful... We really like these cards :3

New card!

This card came from Moscow, Russia - Lena sent it to us. One of our requests in our profile is vintage - and this card is a fine example of Soviet vintage. The card was printed in 1957. That's much older than the cards from our old box! XD The painting is called "The beginning of spring", it was drawn by a Russian painter Ivan Yazev. He mostly painted nature and portraits. Some of his works can be found in the Modern Art Museum in Rostov-on-Don and in Yaroslavl's Art Museum.

Today we went to the post-office to ask about the postcard we got back. You won't believe this... They couldn't even explain what was wrong! "A perfectly normal card," they said. "The stamp is fine, we don't know, why you got it back." Great, we said. Can you take the card and sent it to Belgium already? "Oh no," the post-lady said. "You need to get a new card and stamp and send it one more time."

It's just... So idiotic. Why the hell should we pay for  THEIR mistakes? I'm so mad!!
We decided to put this card in the envelope and send, because getting a new one would be impossible - I bought the last card of this kind from a shop.
Stupid post-office.

Problems

Argh, I hate our post-office system. =_= There are always some stupid problems!
I checkes the official site for stamp prices, and it stated, that you need to pay 0.45Ls if you send a card to EU and 0.50Ls to other countries (letters are a bit more expensive). Okay, I went to the post-office in the city center, and asked to give me stamps to send three cards to EU. I received stamps for 0.45Ls each. Later that day I found another card I could send (the one for Jose), and went to the local post-office. This time I asked a stamp to Portugal. Since Portugal is in EU, it must be 0.45, right?
Wrong. They told me it's 0.50. I bought it, since I prefer not to argue about stuff like that - and I wanted our card to arrive safely. But it amused me.
Okay, since this card was received - I'm happy. But today I found a card in my mail box - the one we sent to Belgium. It had all stamps and seals and everything - it seemed that they sealed it in the post-office, and instead of sending it to Belgium, they sent it back to me. What the hell?! There was no sign like"rejected" or anything, so I can't tell what's wrong. I'm going to the post-office tomorrow - but I'm really mad about this service. I'm nervous about other cards - will they arrive? Were they sent properly? This card was damaged with water drops, and the text me and Lio wrote is somewhat fuzzy.. I'm so upset. If the cards arrive in such a bad shape to all users... It's so awful.
There are two more of our cards travelling - one to the Netherlands and one to Russia. I'm not worried about the Russian one - it was sent in an envelope with a proper stamp, but the card to the Netherlands... Now I'm not sure it will arrive.
Argh.

Card #8 received

Okay, this card does not have mountains, but almost - that's Seven Sisters, series of chalk cliffs in Sussex. Susan, who lives in Worthing, Sussex, UK, sent us this card. Each cliff has it's own name, you can read them on the card. Even though there are eight cliffs, the name is Seven sisters - because it is said there once were seven sisters, and each one had her own house on a separate cliff.

Seven Sisters Country Park is a beautiful place. Great for picnics, bird watching, cycling, canoeing and camping. You can also visit Sheep Centre and watch cute sheep! :D
And again, Postcrossing amazes me with new beautiful places on Earth.

Sent card #9

And this card was for Jose from Portugal. He's a history teacher, and loves football and soccer, and everything about sport and Olympic games. Sadly, it's hard to get cards like these in Riga, so sport was not an option. Lucky for us, Jose also enjoys art - so once again I took a big box of old cards from my closet and searched.

This card shows a painting by Russian painter Ivan Nikitin. This is Tsesarevna (Princess) Anna Petrovna, daughter of Peter I. Her son later became emperor Peter III. She died when she was only 20, so sad. :(
This portrait is a part of exibition in Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. I've been to Moscow, but never visited this famous gallery, I fail. x_x But Moscow is not very far, so I hope me and Lio will definitely pay a visit. ^^
The card itself was printed in 1977.

Sent cards

Two of our cards were received!
This one was for Sirpa in Finland. She asked for nice landscapes - so I bought a card with a photo of the Gulf of Riga (the Baltic Sea). Well, usually the beach is sandy, especially near Riga and Jurmala (Jurmalais a famous health-resort). But if you go further to the West side of the Gulf, the beach becomes rocky, and I find it very beautiful, though not really pleasant for a swim)) This area of Latvia is called Kurzeme, and the towns near the sea are famous for delicious smoked fish and amazing landscapes. Read more about Kurzeme's beauties here.
Sirpa loved this card, we're happy about it!

Card #7 received

We received three cards today, yay! I don't post them all in one post, because I want to give every card specail attention they deserve. :3
Okay, this one is from Inge-Lore from Germany. She lives in a small town Grevenbroich, which is situated between Cologne and Dusseldorf. The funny thing is that we have friends in Germany, and they live near Dusseldorf, in Hilden. And me and Lio visited Germany, we've also been to Cologne (I LOVE Cologne Cathedral, it is so great!). The world is so small, really)
Okay, so here's one more link to Grevenbroich's official site and the card. It's a cute black kitty! *___* We love cats - Lio has a cat named Dasha, I have a cat Freya, and when me and Lio were renting an apartment together, we took in a cute male cat Vincent. He now lives at my place. Thanks, Inge!)

New cool card!

This is the BEST card evaaar! XDDD It was sent by Auli from Finland - I guess she chose this card because we mentioned Gothic&Lolita fashion in our profile. It's not quite the same Gothic style the Europeans know - but who cares, the card is absolutely awesome! We love-love-love it)))

This image is called "Gothic siren" by Anne Stokes - she's a goddess of Gothic fantasy, go check her site out! And she has so much beautiful art featuring dragons... Lio is crazy about dragons, and I love them too) We're so lucky to receive this card, thank you so much, Auli!
Some stuff with Anne's art can be found here.

Card #5 received

This card comes from Grace in Taiwan. Wow, that's the other side of the world... No wonder it took two weeks to get here! XD It's the biggest distance for a received postcard so far - 8,293 km! And... It's a view of the mountains again. o_o I wonder if we will receive any other beautiful nature any time soon?)

This place is called Moon World, because the landscape is so deserted and looks like the surface of the Moon. It is situated in Tianliao district in Taiwan. The terrain is called "badlands" - rains and streams caused a great erosion of tne land. There is a pavillion called Lan-Yue-Loe nearby for tourists to rest and view the landscape (though I'm not sure if it's a hotel, or just a building). You can also visit two temples and a Fongyue mud spring nearby. Grace suggest we visit Taiwan some day. I hope we will someday)

More sent cards

The end of December and the beginning of January was quite a disaster, since I was very ill and couldn't hunt for postcards properly. Lio doesn't have a lot of interest in shopping, even for cards, so it's up to me to get them) We sign the cards together though.
Anyway, the cards needed to be send. Choosing a card for Adri in US was quite easy, since she doesn't have any special preferences. This card was bought by my mom, and I dare say this is one of the most adorable Christmas cards I've ever seen. I would be glad to receive such a card, even though neither me nor Lio are especially in love with cute things.

And this card was for Sine in Germany. Sadly I didn't find any very special card for her, and I also wanted the card to be Christmas-y, so I got this nice baby-blue card from Tiimari. Sine likes skiing and snow, so I thought maybe she'll like the design... But maybe I just fail in choosing. =_=

Received new card!

This card came from Iceland, and since Iceland has onle 137 postcrossers, I consider us lucky. XD Siggi sent us this card of Myvatn lake - the best place for birdwatching in Europe, as the card states. I ended up reading Wiki about Iceland, and found a lot of interesting stuff - I'm so ashamed I never knew that before... Oh well, Postcrossing makes me more intelligent, good for me)

Did you know that Icelanders don't have a surname? The second part of the name is a mix of their fathers first name (or sometimes mothers) and a word "son" (or "daughter"). So Jon Ericsson will be a man, who's name is Jon and who is the son of Eric. Or a woman - Yohanna Ericsdottir. Their son would be named, for example, Amar Jonsson. That is so unusual and interesting! Read here if you're interested.

And one more thing - since I'm a geek for mythology and folklore, I read about Fjallkonan - Lady of the Mountain, who is a female incarnation of Iceland. Sheesh, why did Himaruya made Iceland a guy in his comic strips? He should've got inspiration from this lady))

Aaaand one more thing - I knew that Icelanders have a very unusual national quisine, like fermented shark meat, but never knew it was because this particular shark is quite poisonous, so you just have to let it ferment if you want to eat. I bet ancient Icelanders didn't have much choice. Read about this food in English or Russian.

Received postcard!

This is the third postcard we got, and it came from Gloria, who lives in Boise, Idaho, U.S. It was the first card which showed a place it came from, so it made me and Lio very happy! We LOVE beautiful nature, and mountains are present in our card-wishlist, so double yay for Gloria)
US nature is so beautiful, it takes my breath away. This card shows a part of Rocky mountains, the Sawtooth Range. This particular one is McGown Peak.
The thing I love about Postcrossing is that you can learn about new places you never knew existed. So now I know Boise is the capital of Idaho state, and Idaho is famous for its outdoor activities (with these mountains - no wonder!) and is called "a potato state", because it produces one of the biggest yearly crops of potatoes. Thanks for the info, Gloria! ^^

Christmas card

Our second received card comes from Olga in Brest (Belarus). Even though Christmas already ended, it's nice to receive a sweet card like that.

First card received!

The first card me and Lio received through Postcrossing was a rather unusual one... It was a letter from Lithuania - and the card inside glanced at us with its own eyes! XDDD

It's a handmade card, and this is a friendly robot Jonas from Kaunas! His eyes can move. We find him rather cute)

Unusual cards

When Christmas times comes, it is sometimes very complicated to find a special card for someone, who doesn't enjoy receiving tourist view cards and also Christmas cards. At first I panicked, because I couldn't find anything suitable, but then I stumbled upon some more Christmas cards in Tiimari. One of then literally took my breath away - it was a reprint of a vintage photo with two kids dressed up as angels. I immedeately bought two - one for Lamberto in Italy (since he enjoys angels and vintage), and one for my own private collection)

Next cards

I was feeling ill, but the urge of sending postcards was too great, so I asked Lio and my mom to buy some cards. Signing them kept me busy while I slowly recovered. So these pretty cards show some of the best places in Old Riga (the Old Town belongs to the Unesco WHS, by the way).

For Marjatta in Turku (Finland):

For Seda (Turkey):

And this one I found myself - Marita from Finland had this card in her Favourites, so I decided it could be nice for her)

I know many people don't like cards with many tiny photos, but these users didn't state anything about it in their profiles, so I gave it a try. Personally I think receiving cards like these is fine when you start Postcrossing - it's a chance to see many plases at once.

Getting started!

I got hooked on Postcrossing after seeing a news report on TV. Getting postcards from all over the world sounded like a great idea, so I joined!
Me and my best friend have a joint account, so we sign the cards together. I will boast with ours oh-so-pretty received and sent cards here. ^_^

The very first card was sent to the Netherlands for Djamilah. She asked for something cute - so I remembered about a big box of old postcards, which mom and grandparents bought, when they were young. There I found a card with sweet little bunnies and a squirrel. Very Christmas-like, don't you think? ^.^ Anyway, this one was printed in 1980, even before I was born. The card reached the Netherlands in only 3 days and Djamilah loved it!  A very nice start)